


And if you cook thousand jars of apple compote

by beerin



Series: Unfiltered [2]
Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Apple Compote, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Retirement, Some Chicken Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:47:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29979654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beerin/pseuds/beerin
Summary: When Sebastian comes back from Silverstone, Kimi realizes, that he isn't as excited to go back to racing as he used to be. Hearing about his retirement plans, Sebastian decides to spend his time with Dotty.
Relationships: Kimi Räikkönen/Sebastian Vettel
Series: Unfiltered [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2205147
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	And if you cook thousand jars of apple compote

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer:  
> This work is purely fictional. Even though the described persons do exist in reality, their character traits and actions described here probably do not. I neither know the persons personally, nor do I earn any money with them. If you know any of the persons I would advise you to not read this story.

##### 07 February 2021, Ellighausen, Switzerland

Absently, he stroked the short stubble to which the blond curls had given way. Sebastian sighed contentedly and snuggled closer to his bare chest, wrapping his long limbs around him even tighter. "I'm retiring." The words had left his lips before he had thought about them. Subconsciously they had been buzzing in his head for months, but now that they had come out of his mouth they suddenly seemed to be the solution to all the restlessness that had been driving him around for weeks. The body in his arms, which had just been pliant and cuddly, stiffened. "You're going to leave me alone?" Sebastian's voice sounded unusually distant. Kimi sighed softly. "Seb." 

But the other had already wriggled out of his embrace and was picking up his scattered clothes with nimble fingers, his gaze fixed stubbornly on the floor. " _Suosikki_ ". "Do not Suosikki-me!" he hissed, voice trembling with painfully controlled. The Finn couldn't stop an annoyed undertone from creeping into his voice. "Seb, we've talked about this before, haven't we?"  
"You promised you wouldn't leave me! You promised that you would stay! You promised you wouldn't leave me alone!" Sebastian's voice trembled slightly, but he made no move to look at Kimi, instead frantically continuing to put on his clothes. " _Hyvä tavaton_ , don't be so dramatic."  
"Dramatic?" now his voice spiked uncomfortably. "You just throw our lives away like that and I'm not supposed to be dramatic?" Perplexed, the Finn's blue eyes looked at Sebastian. "Why am I throwing our lives away?" But the other had already stormed out of the room with angry steps and Kimi let himself fall back into the pillows. He knew from experience that it was better to give Sebastian some time in his fits of rage. The German needed the lonely minutes to sort out his thoughts. To avoid saying something he would later regret. To sort out his own feelings.  
Kimi knew Sebastian's routines in arguments. He recognised the insecurity that lurked behind the angry flashing eyes. He knew how quick-tempered Sebastian was and how quickly he got caught up in his own head. And yet - and yet - he had once again managed to bring the other to this point with just a few words. His eyes closed, his arm thrown over his face, he silently counted slowly to a hundred.  
Even after all these years, he lacked finesse. 

When he reached a hundred, he knocked off the much too warm down duvet that Sebastian had insisted on, because he was always cold at night. It was beyond Kimi's comprehension how, despite this, ice-cold feet pressed between his legs every morning. Barefoot and wearing only a white T-shirt, he left the bedroom and turned on the kettle. His gaze roamed over the so familiar surroundings. The roughly plastered walls and exposed beams of the old half-timbered house. The crooked table that Sebastian had carpentered in his carpentry phase and that wobbled so much that books were stuck under the too-short legs. The battered lamp that came from Kimi's maternal grandmother. The slightly grubby stuffed bunny that lay forgotten on one of the large armchairs. Rianna didn't seem to miss it so far. 

The dim light in the kitchen bathed the open ground floor in a dreamy twilight. The February sun, which was still far too cold, had already set, and through the large window he could see the garden illuminated by the rising moonlight.  
The trees urgently needed pruning this week. The apple tree had borne so well last year and Sebastian had eagerly cooked the sweet apples into compote. Kimi hated apple compote. But he loved the German's happy hum as he fiddled with the sticky wooden spoon in swathes of sweet steam, his red apron tied around him, the radio playing in the background. He loved those little moments of domesticity when they could both forget all the daily madness and all the worries that came with it. The moments when they could just be.  
The shelves full of stewed apples in the cellar were a small price to pay.

Frédéric had only smiled when the Finn had dropped by the office in late autumn with a whole crate of the jars. He knew Sebastian's enthusiasm for apples - and Kimi's reluctance. And so numerous staff members had come to enjoy the carefully labelled jars of compote, unaware that the producers of the sweet delicacy were two of the best drivers on the grid.  
Hearing the enthusiastic praise and Frédéric's hair-raising story that the jars came from his neighbour - a toothless old lady whose passion for Vettel's apple compote was so great that Kimi had set aside four jars just for her - he wondered, not for the first time, what would happen if he revealed the truth.  
How would people react if he openly said: I am gay and the apple compote comes from the love of my life. It was 2021. Tom of Finland had been on the stamps a few years ago. Neil Patrick Harris and Jim Parson were under the heaviest paid actors. Sebastian hadn't stopped talking about this gay mayor in Berlin. And about some soccer player? Hitzelssomething? The times were changing. Ecclestone had left Formula One. Hell, they had been racing under the rainbow all last year. The few people in the paddock, which knew about their relationship, had not batted an eyelid - not in all these years.

But then he thought about the cutting comments from the press. He thought about how often he had wiped away Sebastian's tears last year when he had again and again lost himself in comments about his long lost talent. How he had frantically scoured the newspapers in the morning, stumbling over the still foreign language, before placing them on Sebastian's seat at the breakfast table. He thought of the shitstorm there had been when the Grid Girls were abolished. He thought of the vulturing journalists who had pounced on Daniel and Max's friendship, picking away every photograph, every interview, every video clip. He thought about the panicked phone call from Daniel when he had reported Max's harsh words. He remembered Alonso's disparaging interviews, Carlo's casual comments and the latest addition to the small Paddock family. He tried not to think about Russia. Neither of Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia.

It was better that way. They had been doing it for so long, why should a few more years matter? They loved each other, wasn't everything else irrelevant?

The whistle of the kettle snapped him out of his dull thoughts. With a steaming cup in one hand, he pushed open the porch door and plodded through the slightly damp grass.  
Disgusted, he screwed up his face as he stepped into something slimy. Tomorrow he would probably have to go snail hunting again. His idea to sprinkle salt had been met with indignant blue eyes and Sebastian had sulked for half a day until the salt idea was finally banished. And yet it was Kimi who was constantly crawling around the garden collecting the slimy beasts in a bucket. It was Kimi who packed the slimy beasts into his car and abandoned them by a river.  
Because there they would have it good - running water and flowers.  
Kimi was convinced that the slimy beasts didn't care about flowers. They were far too fond of anything that grew in their garden. He was also convinced that the slimy beasts would make their way back to them as soon as he had abandoned them. A soft light shone from the chicken house and a loving smile settled over the Finn's features. Sebastian was a creature of habit.

The excited clucking announced his arrival and the kneeling figure, turned to face him. In his arms lay Dotty, who immediately fluffed up when she noticed the disturbance. Reassuringly, Sebastian shushed her and stroked her feathers with his long, elegant fingers. Gently, Kimi broke through the sounds of the chicken coop: "I brought you some tea. Would you like to come with me back to the house and we can talk in peace?" Reluctantly, Sebastian's gaze darted through the rows of chickens that happily gurgled and clucked around him before sighing and releasing Dotty to freedom. The hen shook her feathers before squeezing in next to Rosa (or maybe Aurélie - Kimi had trouble telling the hens apart). Silently, Sebastian followed him into the garden and after some hesitation, he reached out his hand to the Finn.  
Relieved, the latter reached for the cold hand, that felt so small and lost in his own.  
It was a first step.

With his feet pulled close to his torso, a warm blanket wrapped around him and the still warm cup of herbal tea in his hand, Sebastian sat opposite him. He looked so young and vulnerable and memories of a young Sebastian Vettel flashed in Kimi's mind. Of the clumsy, loud-mouthed and pimply boy he had fallen in love with all those years ago. He had never thought that this man would one day give him so much. So much love and joy, happiness and memories. Sebastian was the best thing that had ever happened to him.  
The best thing that still looked rather grim and had his lower lip pushed forward slightly in defiance.  
Gently he put his hand on the German's knee and took it as a good sign that Sebastian seemed to relax under the light touch. "Darling. I just mean I can't go on forever. I'll be forty-two this year. I'm part of the old guard now. It can't be that I'm still driving and young guys like IIott or Alex are sitting on the bench, waiting for their shot. I had so many chances. I had so many beautiful years. It's not fair to rob them of it for my foolish old sake."  
"But why now, Kimi? You promised that you would stay with me! You promised you wouldn't leave me alone." He nestled into the Finn's hand, which now lovingly cupped his cheek. "Oh Seb, I will never leave you alone." But the first tears were already rolling from the blue eyes and wetting his fingers. "Darling, we are married. We have five children together. You are the love of my life. How could I ever leave you?"  
With trembling hands, Sebastian placed the teacup beside the sofa before throwing himself into Kimi's arms and burying his head in the crook under his neck. Now heart-wrenching sobs shook his body and Kimi stroked his back soothingly. With the same regular movements with which Dotty had been soothed before.

For minutes there was nothing but the soft ticking of the kitchen clock and the desperate sobs that broke the silence. The sobs subsided and with a slight sniffle Sebastian finally calmed down. Teary blue eyes gazed at Kimi and once again he was caught up in his husband's beauty. Light as a feather, he planted a kiss on the other's forehead and wiped the last tears from his now flushed cheeks. "You are so beautiful." Even after all these years, Sebastian's ears reddened and he pressed his lips to the Finn's mouth. Slowly and tenderly their lips touched. It was a sweet kiss that contained all their love.

"I don't understand where this is coming from all of a sudden." "You came from England so excited. Full of new ideas and hopes. Full of excitement about Lance and the new car and the team and how they liked the bread and about podium chances. And I am so happy for you. Beyond happy. You deserve it so much! But I won't have that any more. I'm tired. I don't want to do interviews and press photos anymore. I want to be there for the children. Maybe finally build that pond we've been talking about for so long. Or trying to get the old mill stone working again. We could start grinding our flour, you know?" Gently, his finger rubbed circles over his still damp husband's cheeks. "I want to take Robin and Emily karting, comfort nightmares and have home-cooked food waiting for you when you come back to us smelling of champagne. I don't like the whole circus anymore, Seb." "But Minttu and Hanna..." "Minttu and Hanna deserve a break. They are the best mothers imaginable, but they put everything on hold for years so we could live our dreams. Now it's my turn. Let them both travel, go to goa-parties in Bali or attend readings by that Wilson woman Han always talks about. You know that Oranges one?" Sebastian snorted, "Can you imagine Hanna on Goa?"  
Kimi's reply was a gentle kiss and the other snuggled against his chest, hands now buried in the blonde hair that hadn't lost its fullness over all these years. "If you mean it, do it. Even if I'm going to miss you terribly." "I'll miss you too, _Suosikki_ , I'll miss you too."

As the two lay back in bed, limbs entwined tightly and countless kisses later, Sebastian's voice sounded strangely uncertain in the quiet room. "Kimi?" A tired hum was the only reply. "You always said... when we're old and grey.... And when you retire, you'll be old..." "My back is old," the Finn smirked. With no real momentum, Sebastian waded after him. "I actually meant. Shall we tell them then? Like you know the truth? I mean we would have to talk to Minttu and Hanna, but..." Surprised, Kimi straightened up, all tiredness suddenly gone. "Do you want to?" His husband's voice trembled, but the blue eyes looked at him seriously. "I think I do. I love you Kimi. I love you so much. I want everyone to know how lucky I am. How lucky we are." And Kimi swallowed all concerns at that moment and kissed Sebastian deeply and passionately instead. "Okay." he murmured against the German's lips and felt him grin into the kiss. "Okay."

**Author's Note:**

> Roughly translated:  
>  _Suosikki_ (fin.): Darling (petname)  
>  _Hyvä tavaton_ (fin.): My goodness.  
> \------------------------------  
> I just had the urge to write some domestic fluff (instead of finally writing my thesis or finally finishing the other fic.)  
> Sooo here is some fluffy fluff fluff.
> 
> I am not sure if apple compote actually exists in English, it is a roughly cooked apple jam with big chunks of apple.
> 
> If you want to talk to me about apple compote and snail plagues, here is my tumblr:  
> [@beerin](http://beerin.tumblr.com)


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